Originally Posted by
Gonewiththewallet
They are not rumours, I have spoken with cadets who are currently there and delays are up to 18 months!
If you cause a fuss they can make them longer. They pay 'compensation' depending how long you are delayed of £25 once you are delayed 6 months, 9 months £50 and 1 year £75 a week more or less, some have complained and some have got a 'free' type rating or one half price for those on airline schemes.
If your 'tagged' to an airline your delays will be shorter, if your not your delays will be the longest guaranteed!
The delays are likely to continue for some years to come, the smart thing to do would be to stay clear, do your PPL at your local flying club then head over to Europe for CPL etc and get it done in a few months at 33% of the cost!
Or if your certain you want a big player like that, CAE seems to be more reputable and I have not heard anything about delays and are a similar price.
So you are partly right, but your figures are wrong. We get £35 per week for up to 12 weeks, £65 per week for between 13 and 20 weeks, and £105 per week above 21 weeks. Additionally, we get £5,000 at the end of training for delays of up to 30 weeks, £10,000 for up to 40 weeks, and free type rating of our choice for above. I've personally not heard of anyone of 18months, longest i've heard of is 12months which is why they brought in the type rating package. Delays have reduced massively with the opening of new centres and some outsourcing, with most people seeing around 4-5 months. Also, saying that if you make a fuss they will delay you more is wrong as that would cost L3 more money.
I'd do some very quick research if i were you on here. Its not hard to find information about CAE also having issues such as massive delays between offer and starting because they no longer have capacity in ground school. There is a thread on here about 40 easyjet ATPL's who were dropped because of it, and i'm also aware of 120+ Indigo airline cadets who had to be outsourced from CAE for both ground school and flight instruction this year alone.
Unfortunately, the flight training industry is facing a massive issue on 2 fronts. The first is a reduction in the number of available instructors due to many reaching the retirement age, many going to join airlines and new cadets going straight to airlines and not building hours as instructors. The second is the massive increase in the number of people wanting to be pilots.
Delays are not an L3 issue only. There are delays across the industry at the big flight schools. The big advantage that the likes of L3/CAE give you are employment. Yes, it is a goodish market at the moment and i know there are those who are "anti-integrated" and will say you have no problem getting a job once qualified. However, integrated whitetail students at L3 are getting offers of employment before they have even finished the course. I've seen offers to students from BA, Air France, Easyjet, Flybe, Sun Express, Royal Brunei and Air Astana around 3/4 months from the end of training, so students are walking into jobs just weeks after graduation.